If, however, you will not reply to our prayer, we shall
die here, on the place before your palace. We have no other refuge
and no other means. We have two roads before us, one to freedom
and happiness, the other to the grave. Tell us, Sire, which, and
we will follow obediently, and if it be the road of death, let our
lives be a sacrifice for suffering-wearied Russia. We do not
regret the sacrifice; we bring it willingly.
Led on by the strange, hypnotic power of the mystical Father Gapon, who was
clad in the robes of his office, tens of thousands of working-people
marched that day to the Winter Palace, confident that the Czar would see
them, receive their petitions, and harken to their prayers. It was not a
revolutionary demonstration in the accepted sense of that term; the
marchers did not carry red flags nor sing Socialist songs of revolt.
Instead, they bore pictures of the Czar and other members of the royal
family and sang "God Save the Czar" and other well-known religious hymns.
No attempt was made to prevent the procession from reaching the square in
front of the Winter Palace. Suddenly, without a word of warning, troops
appeared from the courtyards, where they were hidden, and fired into the
crowded mass of human beings, killing more than five hundred and wounding
nearly three thousand.
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